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Crowd Interaction & Reaction
By Ryan Wilson

For me crowd reaction means a lot, and although at live events I’m not typically the rowdy type I still do put my two pence piece in to shouting, cheering and booing anyone I like or dislike, I “ah” when there’s a good spot and I moan when there’s a botch. At my last WWE live event I bought a program, dear knows why seeing as they’re only picture books in effect, and at the start it gave me a quote; a quote that when I read it in the arena gave me goosebumps or tingles -whatever you guys call them. This quote spoke so loud and true to me that I couldn’t help but copy it down on my blackberry so whenever I’m bored and flick through my phone, this quote has enough in it to make me smile. Below is the quote:

There is nothing else like it: The electric anticipation that fills the arena as people take their seats. The buzzing darkness when the lights go down. The very first note of a Superstar’s entrance music, and the crowd’s instant, deafening roar. The moment when the Superstar finally emerges, or the way time slows down when a high-flyer takes to the air. Every show is an infinity of moments. And everyone in attendance knows they are witnessing something unforgettable, something great. Each of them will forever be able to say,
“I was there.”

This quote is true to me, individually and I’m damn sure it’s true to everyone reading this. I love it when people are taking their seats, mumbling to each other about last week’s Raw or SmackDown, or just generally talking about great WWE moments. They sometimes talk about previous live events they’ve been to, or that time they met David Otunga, Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, the back then debuting Alberto Del Rio and Rey Mysterio (k, I don’t mean to boast but it was a cool day for me) I also met Chad Patton but I’m not one to over boast. When the lights go down, I mark out like a 5 year old meeting SpongeBob, and when I hear that first note you best believe I’m turning to the person beside me, screaming to them in high pitched vocals who the superstar is. When it says deafening roar I’m more like the dude smashing glass with my high pitched but totally awesome 5 year old vocals, but the rest of Belfast manage to bulk up the crowd noise with monotone blurs. I, thankfully, had awesome seats the past two times I went to a live event, with the more recent time being the best seats I’ve ever had. Here’s the bit where I sound like a pervert but I was able to touch the superstars who were clapping hands with the guys at the side, my most notable touch was Eve, hubba bubba she left her glitter on my hand, Sin Cara and Sheamus who not so surprisingly had a wrist the size of my legs…both of them together. And finally, I’m able to say that I seen a great Sin Cara – Primo match, and I saw Evan Bourne take to the skies to hit a shooting star press -which is so much better live that on TV. Well I hate to be the one to repeat what WWE said, but “I was there.”

Like I said at the start, crowd interaction to me is vital. If you don’t have that at a live event then what do you have? Wrestlers in the ring trying their hardest to put on a good show, getting no feedback from the crowd. What then? Are the wrestlers just meant to be happy about this, cos I sure as hell wouldn’t and ultimately it results in less than spectacular performances that we, the crowd are expecting. At Hell In A Cell I thought the crowd was so flat, so bad that if you emptied the stadium and put one high pitched like 5 year old in the crowd would have made more noise, wouldn’t have looked as well but it would have sounded better. I honestly enjoyed the matches; I can’t say I hated any of them, so what if they weren’t the best? Not all the matches are gonna be the best that they can be. Sheamus won I was happy with that. Sin Cara vs Sin Cara wasn’t the cleanest of matches and granted there were a lot of botches, but I’d like to see half the world do what they done, and as far as the crowd go? Chanting boring killed the match, I understand that you’re a paying customer and have good rights to voicing your opinion but honestly? You dudes killed the crowd. It was hard to listen to and annoyed me from get go, and I’m sure this infuriated Vince in the back. That was basically the stand out moment for me with the crowd and there wasn’t much else that bothered me other than the lack of noise. I think at one stage Cole was trying his hardest to talk over the chants to hide them from those watching at home, but it wasn’t happening for me, all I could think of was how much of spoilt brats the dudes chanting boring were. The crowd were lackluster from then on, and refused to spark any emotion, there were a few ahs, a few ohs but not enough for a PPV. I wouldn’t have cared if it was Raw or SmackDown, but the fact of the matter is when you have a better crowd response at Raw than you do at a PPV that’s bound to be telling you something, right? Of course the crowd were slightly more enthusiastic at the end of the PPV when all hell broke loose, but again, I’ll go back to it, they killed the PPV until then. I love wrestling and watched each match with as much excitement as I could conjure up for what was gonna happen, sure I was positive that AirBoom, Rhodes, Henry and Beth were gonna win their matches but that didn’t make me any less intrigued. But as I was watching the PPV I had bad thoughts about it in the back of my mind, I just couldn’t get over the fact of how lame the crowd were.

To be a wrestler you need to possess the skills and trades to be one, but to be a successful wrestler you need to connect to the crowd, and at Hell In A Cell, no one done that. But for me, this is where I’m making an exception, these wrestlers, these guys and girls who put everything on the line out there to please us fans didn’t shrug the shoulders and give up. They continued with their matches, finished their matches and they probably gave off in the back but the fact that they stayed on course and done what needed to be done was good enough for me. I enjoyed the PPV, I enjoyed the Hell In A Cell matches and I would probably enjoy them if I watched them again. It was a weak PPV in comparison to others but I enjoyed it and if I was to watch it again, I’d probably get ten times more pissed off than I was the first time watching it, simply due to the fact that the crowd didn’t inspire shit to smell. I couldn’t get as excited about the matches as I wanted to, this is because I love to hear the crowd roar, and when they’re excited I’m excited with them. To sit and watch a PPV on screen with nothing from the crowd and everything from the commentators, it made me wanna listen to some music, although it would be a crime to turn off Booker T, damn he is so funny. Overall the PPV wasn’t too bad in my opinion, I enjoyed the matches, the crowd just dampened the mood.

What does everyone else think?